“What did you tell him?”

“I told him I’ve watched you reject a customer’s suggestion to hide a scratch under coating. You don’t cut corners when nobody’s watching, so why would you start when everybody is?”

I felt my throat tighten. Nia had been with us for only nine months. She’d seen me at my worst during the weeks after the vandalism. Yet she’d judged my character by the small things I did when I thought she wasn’t paying attention.

“Thank you,” I said.

She nodded. “I just wanted you to know.”

Later I thought about how many people had tried to determine whether I deserved the Lamborghini by looking at its price. Nia had done something simpler and more accurate. She had watched me work.

That afternoon we completed a badly neglected family minivan. Its owner was a single father who’d been caring for a sick parent and had let the interior fall apart. He apologized for the smell and the stains, embarrassed to have strangers see what exhaustion looked like in his car.

I told him we’d seen worse and meant it. When he returned, the seats were clean and the dashboard shone. He stood with his hand on the door and said, “I feel like I can start over.”

That was what my company actually sold. Not status. Not envy. The chance to care for something until it felt worth keeping.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX — The Choice to Testify

A month before the trial date, investigators asked whether I would be available for additional interviews. The prosecutor wanted to make sure my account of the morning matched the evidence and that I could explain the restoration documents without overstating anything.

It was uncomfortable work. They asked about my prior contact with Dylan, my anger, my business earnings, and the exact words Vivienne used. They didn’t ask because they thought I was lying. They asked because the defense would ask too, and memory does not improve just because an event was important.

I kept returning to one clear answer: I hadn’t seen every second of the vandalism with my own eyes. The cameras showed what happened before I stepped outside. I would describe what I personally witnessed and let the recordings speak for the rest.

That distinction mattered to me. My business had survived because customers could trust my descriptions of what I’d actually done, not what I wished I’d done. I didn’t want a judge or jury to rely on my certainty about facts I knew only from a video.

One afternoon Dana and I reviewed the sequence. She pointed to a frame showing Vivienne in the doorway.

“What do you feel when you see this?” she asked.

“Rage,” I said. “And something else.”

“What?”

“Shame that I let them get to me. I know that doesn’t make sense.”

“It makes sense. Someone attacked something you valued and tried to make you feel unworthy of it.”

I stared at the photograph. “Part of me still wants to prove the car is mine. To her. To everybody.”

“Malcolm, the registration, the insurance, and your payment records already do that. You don’t have to keep proving it emotionally.”

She was right. But truth in a file and truth in your body aren’t always synchronized.

I spent the weekend with Andrea. We cooked at her house, watched her children argue about a board game, and walked the neighborhood after dinner. She asked whether I was prepared to testify if the case went to trial.